An international scientific team, in which investigating personnel at the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands (IAC) participate, obtained an image of the NGC 1514 planetary nebula thanks to the James Webb space telescope (JWST), in which its powder rings are revealed “with an unprecedented level of detail”.
The NGC 1514 nebula was among the first studied by astronomer William Herschel (1738-1822), who watched with his telescope, the largest in the world at that time, which seemed like a blurred cloud similar to the planet Neptune, the IAC detailed in a statement.
According to the Institute, installed on the Spanish Atlantic Island of Tenerife, the images of the space telescope, published in the magazine The Astronomical JournalThey revealed unthinkable details for Herschel. In the infrared wavelengths observed by the JWST, the nebula showed a pair of dust rings surrounding its nucleus
This central region is probably the only part that Herschel could have observed with its telescope in the 18th century, the note added.
“Before JWST, we could not detect the vast majority of that matter and much less observe it so clearly,” said Mike Ressler, in charge of the Miri instrument of the JWST and first author of the study. We believe that the rings are made of small grains of dust, heated by the light of the central star until shining in infrared light and that is why they are not seen in the visible, ”he ruled out.
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The nebula is also remarkable for its central star, which is not one, but two stars in an orbit of more than nine years.
“Even with the JWST resolution, we could not separate the stars,” said David Jones, a researcher at the IAC and co -author of the article. The distance between them is similar to that between the sun and Jupiter, but in a very eccentric orbit, which means that sometimes they approach much more, ”he said.
According to the study, the approach of the two stars could be the cause of the formation of the rings.
“Without the companion, the central star would surely have not produced such a colorful nebula,” said Alba Aller, astronomer of the National Astronomical Observatory and co -author of the study.
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